This story from my early days in Tucson has followed me throughout my life.

My grandma Urbanski lived in Tucson while we lived there. She had a chair that spun around. Of course being a kid I love to sit on that thing in spin, even though I wasn’t supposed to.

I remember that I knocked over a lamp that had to glass globes on it. It took the months and months to get those globes replaced. They had to order the glass from Ohio.

I remember spilling a full can of paint on the carpet in one of my aunt’s places.

Back in sixth and seventh grade I ran the 1320, or the three-quarter mile race.

I remember so well coming around the home stretch and my mother is in the stands yelling: “John, John, don’t run too fast! You’ll hurt yourself!”

Only from a mother, huh?

Other than that my daily life is probably funny! It’s all a matter of perspective.

I’ve always had a lot of fun with the people that I’ve been with.

As a new young that businessman of 24 or 25 I was working out my restaurant. Two other guys and I decided to go hunt golf balls.

I went to my wife and asked her for an old pair of pantyhose.

My buddies and I dove for golf balls in the two Rivers that bordered the course in our area. We never got caught but we had a lot of silly fun.

On my 21st birthday I remember going into the round table restaurant. The owner, Roy Baker, was a great friend and mentor to me as I went into business. He put a pitcher of beer in front of me because I hadn’t been able to drink until then.

Roy told me: “there’s twenty more where that came from!”

Fortunately I didn’t go through 21 pitchers of beer that night but it’s a fond memory of a great relationship.